================================================================= This file is a part of the 1999 Hyperreal Drug Archives Snapshot. This snapshot is hosted by Erowid and will not be updated after October 1999. The information in these files may be out of date. See Erowid's Psychoactive Vaults for more current info. ================================================================= From: jkenner@cello.gina.calstate.edu (Jason Kennerly) Subject: Methamphetamine FAQ 1.0 Date: Thu, 31 Aug 1995 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <425mh7$j5@cello.gina.calstate.edu> organization: GINA and CORE+ Services of The California State University newsgroups: alt.drugs.chemistry,alt.drugs NOTE: There's not a single lab proceedure in this damn file. Just a whole lotta notes, enough to figure out a good lab proceedure. As I switched from Dexedrine to Ritalin because it was too sedating (!), you can understand why I have little interest in engineering a working methamphetamine synthesis with full details. This file's main purpose in life is hopefully to stem the flow of email to my account asking for meth recipes, and to provide a great mail-bomb reply for those who continue to ask me for such... You want tips on making CAT, *and* you've tried and perhaps failed, then email me and I will cooperate with ya fully. There's a lot of critique commentary and extension written by myself in this FAQ, and even a proposal or two which remains to my knowledge untried at all. This is pretty much a FAQ in the literal sense... **** METHAMPHETAMINE FAQ v1.0: 1. via Chloromethamphetamine notes with Bromomethamphetamine extension. 2. via Iodomethamphetamine notes 3. P2P notes [none yet other than "reductively aminate"] 4. via D-Phenylalanine notes [or DL-Phenylalanine] 5. via Amphetamine 6. Seperation of isomers of amphetamine and related 7. "Bunk" synthesises, and why they don't work 8. General information ...........................(1) Via Chloromethamphetamine................... Making it from ephedrine or pseudoephedrine is possible. The only difference between methamphetamine and (pseudo)ephedrine is that damn alpha-hydroxy group. Reacting your ephedrine with thionyl chloride replaes the OH with Cl to produce N-methyl-alpha-chloroamphetamine as an intermediate. Hydrogenating this product is easy: use lithium aluminum hydride, sodium borohydride, or even hydrogen gas with nickel or platinum metal as a catalyst. The product of this step is N-methylamphetamine and HCl. Evaporate off the water and you have methamphetamine hydrochloride. Another method: React the (pseud)Ephedrine with PHOSPHORUS PENTACHLORIDE (maybe even the trichloride would work!). This is another chlorinating agent. The byproduct is phosphoric acid instead of messy sulphur compounds. In other words, LESS STINK!!! Reduction is possible with standard LAH procedures, as per above. /////////////////////A bromomethamphetamine side note, possibly appliable to the chloroamphetamine methods with altered yields/////// > Would you be so kind as to e-mail me a detailed description of the > brominated ephedrine method of synthesizing methamphetamine. Thanx! Method, no. The idea I proposed was to prepare HBr acid [see elusis's file] in aqueous solution, add Ephedrine base (or HBr?) and zinc bromide [or a small amount of zinc to FORM zinc bromide] as catalyst, to form bromomethamphetamine. This reaction would take place faster than the coresponding reaction with HCl. note that HI + ZnI may very well proceed straight to methamphetamine given HI's aptitude for attacking iodated hydrocarbons. The bromomethamphetamine would be disolved in anhydrous ethyl ether, then powdered magnesium would be added, hopefully forming the grignard. To this water is added slowly to form methamphetamine and various magnesium salts.. I've never seen it tried and the NH2+ may cause a problem with forming the grignard. It's just an idea. ............................(2) Via Iodomethamphetamine.................... (pseud)Ephedrine is reduced with red phosphorus using iodine as a catalyst. OK, remember the reagent for halide sub. of an alcohol? It was always PCl3, PBr3, or PI3 right? Neat P(x)3 isn't usually used, right? So, I imagine you would mix HI, red P, and the alcohol in a flask at first. Then the P4 would change to PI3. (no, not by magic. do you remember this shit yet?) The PI3 would reduce the alcohol to a halide by some mech. I forgot. The PI3 again magically changes to H3PO3 and HI when heated. The HI reduces the alcohol-that-is-now-a-halide to a hydrocarbon. SO... The reaction basically goes like this: Phosphorus + Iodine ---> PI3 (pseud)Ephedrine + PI3 ---> Phosphoric acid + b-Iodo,n-methamphetamine PI3 + water ---> HI + H3PO3 b-Iodo,n-methamphetamine + HI ---> Methamphetamine + I2 (iodine) (iodine is reused) Another version of this synthesis involves reacting iodine with plain old red phosphorus, adding the ephedrine, then continuing to add red P to keep the reduction going. This is the 'classic biker meth' recipe, and without a good acid/base extraction thru a nonpolar solvent, a good way to end up a hyperthyroid mess with the nickname 'goiter joe']. Since, nou doubt, the classic "biker methheads" eyeballed amounts for their reagents [just kidding guys], and evaluated production not with scales and chromatographs but with HONEST TO GOD FIELD TESTING [heh heh] of the compound, there were no amounts listed. Figure it out yerself, as directed to in the below listing: /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// This whole thread has been extremely educational to an old P2P chemHacker like POPEYE, but I think y'all need to know that the HI reduction of ephedrine doesn't involve a chlorephedrine intermediate or hydrogenation w/ Pd/C, Raney Nickel,and especially not LAH. Now I could be fullaShit, BUT, it seems that at LEAST two syntheses are being confused here. The original question was: > Will hydroiodic acid really reduce ephedrine to methamphetamine via > beta-iodo-methamphetamine? POPEYE doesn't know shit about anything following the 'via' in that sentence, but he does know that L-ephedrine is refluxed with hydriodic acid in the presence of a RED PHOSPHOROUS catalyst for 32 hours to yield crank oil, which is seperated from the reaction goop with 10% LYE and a sep funnel, then acidified, dehydrated, and cooled in an ether-acetone solution to yield Crystal.. much simpler than Yall are makin' it out to be. This is the famous one-step biker crank and it's killer when done as an art form...considerably more potent than a P2P route and absoLUTEly the reason that L-ephedrine has become scarce in some sectors of the occupied territories formerly known as the USA. Sorry I couldn't supply references or proportions for this synth....It should be easy to Mole out from what I've said, and I absolutely 100% can guarantee that this is not bullshit. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Always watch out for beta-halogenated byproduct - these unreacted components are supposedly quite bad for you. A LAH wash of the finished compound should remove them nicely. Barring that, a quick reflux in 1M NaOH(aq) will probably convert any beta-halogenated product back into ephedrine - strive to use enough phosphorus to complete the original reaction. YET ANOTHER METHOD: Alcohols can be converted to their halides simply by mixing with the acid. Tert-butanol reacts SO FAST that merely mixing it with HCl results in tert- butyl-chloride in a few minutes! In general, the rules for this are that tertiary alcohols react fastest, and primary alcohols slowest. N-butanol + HCl reacts so slowly that Zinc Chloride must be used as a catalyst. Another thing to remember is that HI reacts fastest, HCl slowest. With this in mind, recall that Hx halogen acids can be synthesized from their salts and a stronger acid. Sulphuric acid is suitable for HCl and sometimes HBr, but will oxidize HI back to I2. Phosphoric acid however will not, and can be used with solid KI or NaI to make HI gas. The ideal reaction to use for this method would probably involve zinc iodide and hydroiodic acid. Zinc iodide can be prepared by simply mixing zinc and iodine in a suitable setting and heating (dangerous enough - exothermic rxn). Make enough zinc iodide and you can use it... Zinc Iodide + Phosphoric acid ---> Zinc Phosphate + HI (gas) ZnI HI + Ephedrine ---> b-iodomethamphetamine + H2O HI + b-iodomethamphetamine ---> methamphetamine A suggested synthesis would involve leaving the HI + Ephedrine over ZnI for for a LONG TIME [two days?], perhaps even with heating? As with all proposed synthesises, try it first, find out, and use your intuition to think of an improvement, try that, see if it works better or worse, etc. ...................................(3) P2P Notes........................... .............................(4) Via D,L-Phenylalanine..................... A surprisingly simple synthesis is possible from the amino acid phenylalanine, which is available at health food stores for about $14 for 100 tablets. Phenylalanine is 2-amino-3-phenylpropanoic acid, which is more or less amphetamine with a COOH where the CH3 should be at the end of the chain. Thionyl chloride will replace the OH with a Cl, which falls off and is replaced by H when you give it lithium aluminum hydride, sodium borohydride, or hydrogen gas and nickel/platinum. If you use hydrogen and metal for that step, you'll have to reduce the carbonyl group with one of the hydrides, so best save time + effort and use them and do both reductions at once. When that carbonyl is reduced, you now have amphetamine. Go back up to that first one I mentioned for upgrading amphetamine into methamphetamine. (and end up with a racemic mixture - that is to say dl-amphetamine or dl-methamphetamine - the latter being similar to 50% d-meth from ephedrine and 50% l-meth from a vicks inhaler!] [BY THE WAY: If you use the all-to-common L-Phenylalanine, you'll get l-amphetamine! Use "DL-Phenylalanine (DLPA)" if you want to use this prcedure] Note that both the DLPA and the P2P procedures will give you a mixture of d- and l- isomers. The d- is cool, the l- is shit. If you have the time, energy, and equipment, you can separate the two. |and reprocess the l- into d- by oxidizing it and re-aminating it as |described in the "critique" of the Phrack synthesis. Why bother? what a major pain in the ass, especially considering the ease of producing the d-isomer directly, the cheapness of DLPA versus recycling L-meth into more racemic product, etc. Simply isolate the D-isomer and THROW the L-isomer AWAY!!! ................................(5) Via Amphetamine........................ One of the easiest ways to make methamphetamine is from amphetamine. Of course, this assumes you have amphetamine in the first place, but let's just pretend you have some and you want to spice it up a bit. The difference between amphetamine and methamphetamine is the addition of a single methyl group (CH3) to the amino group sticking off the middle carbon atom in the chain. Fortunately, substituting amines is really simple. Vaporize your amine (your amphetamine) with a bunch of vaporized chloromethane (CH3Cl, a solvent) and some gaseous pyridine... voila, the amino group takes the methyl from the chloromethane and lets a hydrogen go. The hydrogen joins the liberated chlorine, and the resulting HCl is soaked up by the pyridine. The pyridine is optional. Adding it drives the reaction a bit by pulling the excess HCl out of the equation, but it's not neessary. ...........................(6) Separation of isomers....................... .............................(7) "BUNK" Synthesises........................ One, from Phrack magazine, is the "tried and true method" for prepping meth from Vick's nasal inhalers. Vick's nasal inhalers contain "l-desoxyephedrine," another name for "l-methamphetamine." The l- isomer of methamphetamine is the relatively inactive one, usable as a (mild) nasal decongestant. The d- isomer is the one that everyone wants and that Uncle Sam has declared is just too cool for anyone except doctors. The procedure described would extract the l-meth froom the inhalers and collect it and that's it. I'm sorry, but the Isomer Fairy can't wave her magick wand and reverse the chirality of the molecule. The only way to change between the two isomers is to oxidize the l-meth into phenylacetone, condense it with methylamine, then reduce it. Sorry, but soaking inhalers in HCl then separating the "juice" with Et2OH just won't do it. You'll get l-meth and that's that. On the other hand, when your friends rat you out cause you basically ripped them off, don't expect the cops to check the isomerization. They'll say "Yup, its methamphetamine, book 'em" and that will be all. A SYNTHESIS THAT MIGHT WORK, MIGHT NOT: A more credible souding one mentions that "methamphetamine is prepared by the calalytic reduction of pseudoephedrine in acetic acid" blahblahblah and then goes on to describe, not catalytic reduction via acetic acid, but reduction with sodium borohydride. I'm sorry to say that no method attempting to directly reduce (pseudo)ephedrine's hydroxyl group is going to work. You can't expose it to a strong acid, or a weak acid, or sodium borohydride, or even lithium aluminum hydride and expect it to reduce at all. As with the Vick's Inhalers "recipe," you get a lot of SOMETHING, but it ain't d-meth. All you'll be left with is your (pseudo)ephedrine and a bunch of acid, lithium, and/or sodium and lotsa hydrogen gas. This is because the hydroxyl group (the OH in ephedrine) is on a very acidic carbon (the first carbon away from the ring) and a hydroxyl group is very basic. If the hydroxyl were on the second carbon from the ring (the carbon with the amine group, the NH2 or NHCH3), there might be some chance, but it's not and there's not. You're not getting a basic group off an acidic carbon without a fight, and acids, borohydride, and LiAlhydride aren't gonna fight that hard. [this may not be true. If the acetic acid forms the ESTER at the hydroxy, it would aid in reduction by serving as a catalyst. This is doubtful, especially considering that any process promoting the loss of water would also create the acetic amide! Perhaps a final reflux with sodium hydroxide would resolve this problem, but its still a poor method as the author above stated] .................................(5) General Info.......................... From Merck Index, 11th edition: Long Name: N,a-Dimethylbenzeneethanamine Molecular Weight: 149.24 for the HCl form: Melts at 170-175c Tastes bitter [nooo... really???] Soluable in water, alcohol, and chloroform, but practically insoluable in ethyl ether. A 1% aqeuous solution is neutral or slightly acidic to litmus. From PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS and RELATED COMPOUNDS, 2nd edition: LD50 data listed from multiple sources: 70mg/kg,i.p. mice for D isomer: 15mg/kg,i.p. mice 9.4mg/kg/i.v./mice [bunch of data for L-isomer, which aint that potent, not included. It's my guess the reason for all the data on the L-isomer is to indicate safety probably trials done before marketing the Vicks Inhalers...] Human Dosage (for non-tolerant individuals): For halucinations [unpleasant paranoid ones I imagine?]: 40-60mg i.v. For stimulation: 2.5-5mg bid or tid, 10-15mg i.v. bid, 15-30mg i.m. b.i.d. 2.5-10mg daily [these somewhat conflicting data are interesting...] For anoretic use: 10-15mg DIAGRAMS: Amphetamine Methamphetamine (pseud)Ephedrine _____ _____ _____ OH / _ \ / _ \ / _ \ | < (_) >-CH2-CH--CH3 < (_) >-CH2-CH--CH3 < (_) >-CH--CH--CH3 \_____/ | \_____/ | \_____/ | NH2 NH--CH3 NH--CH3 b-halogen-Methamphetamines Phenylalanine _____ x _____ OH / _ \ | / _ \ | < (_) >-CH--CH--CH3 < (_) >-CH2-CH--C=O \_____/ | \_____/ | NH--CH3 NH--CH3 **** -- ____ ______ ________ _____ / \ | \| /\ | \ jkenner@cello.gina.calstate.edu / \| _ \ \/ | _ \ /___/\ \___|> > |__|> > BORN TO BE WIRED... / | / /\ | / All the sugar and twice the \_________|______/|___\/__|______/ caffeine of regular netusers! finger me and make a pgp key come. From: yshan@bnr.ca (Yogi Shan) Subject: Jason & the Golden Fleeced (Was:Re: req: home-bake info Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <4d4l04$9va@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> distribution: world references: <4d3pql$35o@cello.gina.calstate.edu> organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd. newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard,alt.drugs.chemistry,alt.drugs,rec.drugs.misc,rec.drugs.psychedelic originator: yshan@bcarh697 Awright, time to bring out the clowns and dancing bears. Let's get this circus on the road. Yowza! Yowza! Jason Kennerly is a systematic purveyor of egregious _garbage_. He is not the _only_ one of this kind in the drug groups, he is merely the _worst_. Not only does he not realize it, he doesn't care. Perhaps for the first time in his young life, people are paying attention to him. Lots of them. He gets e-mail from all over the continent, if not the world. People compliment him. Admire him. Respect him. Not bad for a junior college schmoe, even though it all a giant charade made possible by the gullibility of semi-illiterate drug users looking for the Holy Grail: an "Endless Supply of Cheap Home-Made Drugs". Yesiree! From hardware store ingredients, if possible. No, no. Make it the grocery store -- we don't want to have to walk too far. The Genesis of The Problem ************************** It's been a process of negative evolution. Over the last half decade at least, a variety of skilled chemists, pharmacologists, and other scientists have come and gone in the drug newsgroups as they became bored, the signal-to- noise ratio has decreased, they began to fear the repercussions of posting, or they were worn done by the unending cacophony of shouting nitwits and their feeble attempts at showing the world how clever they are. As the Net became popularized, the average education and experience of the Internet user has declined steadily, and the standard of who can pass as an expert has declined with it. I could literally spend a consistent one to two hours a day correcting the chemistry errors alone that I see here. But that would be an absurd waste of time, made more so by the ingratitude of many a worthless internet druggie, his memory, morality, intellect, and personality utterly obliterated by the chemicals he claims liberate and enlighten him. In previous posts, I have shown you how Jason accomplishes this chameleon-like act, and hypothesized a reasonable (though eminently debatable) medical explanation for its basis. Over the next few days (my email is backed up, so if you've sent me email recently, be patient) let us explore Jason's fundamental technical inadequacy, and why it matters. I've chosen three characteristic examples (of many I've seen) of how his mind operates. Or more appropriately, how it _fails_ to operate at even minimum levels of intellect. This thread started on the basis of his many factual errors. Some guy refers to a very specific 1991 _J.For.Sci._ paper giving some details that make it unlikely he's making it up. Jason questions his facts, because if Jason hasn't seen something, *it* *must* *not* *exist*. Much more important than his factual errors, however, are his _conceptual_ errors. Quite simply, Young Master Kennerly _does_ _not_ _understand_. Jason & the Grignard ******************** Jason wrote a stunningly worthless piece of rambling nonsense, entitled the "Methamphetamine FAQ". His "bromoamphetamine side-note" hypothesizes the preparation of methamphetamine from bromoamphetamine using the well-known Grignard reaction. Fine. He labels it as an "idea", that he "proposed" that will "hopefully" form the Grignard. Now first of all he tells you to use Magnesium powder. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with the Grignard knows that one uses Magnesium turnings. Even a non-chemist can look this up. See if it says magnesium"turnings" or "powder". I can't remember if the powder will either not work or just blow you up. No mind. That's less important than the next point: He finishes off this masterful hypothesis with the cover-my-bases statement: "I've never seen it tried and the NH2+ may cause a problem with forming the Grignard." Thank you, Master Kennerly. Clap, clap, clap. Now Young Master Kennerly seems to be dimly aware that various chemical groups (like "NH2+") may actually have the audacity to cause difficulty. This is in fact the case. The Grignard only works with alkyl compounds. More importantly, it took me a grand total of 180 seconds to look up "Grignard" in a standard second year organic text (Morrison & Boyd, 3rd ed.) and find a statement that the "NH2+" (and many other groups) in fact completely trash this reaction. It won't work. More importantly, it took me _180_ seconds to verify that it wouldn't work using a basic, simple-to-read text. I looked in the index for "grignard", went to that page, and found a paragraph listing the important concept that most functional groups, including, "NH2+" cause the reaction to crap out. In three -- count 'em -- minutes. *You* can do this exercise yourself at home, or at the nearest public library. Instead of hypothesizing, proposing, and equivocating, why wasn't Young Master Kennerly reading and _understanding_ about Grignard Reactions? By the way, his description of the Phenylalanine synthesis is complete nonsense as well, as was the recent discussion here in alt.drug.chem- istry. The prep'n of meth from D-PA requires a 3-step synthesis using LAH & tosyl chloride. There are a couple of variants (Gal, Repke, etc.) and they're all much more complicated that the ludicrous simplification that Young Master Kennerly has hypothesized. I guess Kennerly is smarter than all those guys with their fancy PhDs and organic laboratories. Yessiree! Real whiz kid, he is. Anyone starting to realize that Jason Kennerly doesn't really have the slightest clue what he is doing, and what he is talking about? That you too could "propose" ten pages of Methamphetamine Syntheses that "might" work yourself? Tomorrow: Example 2: Evaporating Solvents -- The Kennerly Way! Yogi ********************************************** The difference between a Fool and a Damn Fool, is that a Fool knows what he is. ********************************************** From: yshan@bnr.ca (Yogi Shan) Subject: Jason & the Golden Fleeced II (Was:Re: req: home-bake info Date: Sat, 13 Jan 1996 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <4d70ne$42c@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> distribution: world references: <4d3pql$35o@cello.gina.calstate.edu> <4d4l04$9va@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd. newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard,alt.drugs.chemistry,alt.drugs,rec.drugs.misc,rec.drugs.psychedelic originator: yshan@bcarh697 "'No, I wouldn't say he was exactly... but there was something queer... there was something uncanny about him. I'll tell you my opinion...'" -- "Dubliners" James Joyce The wind through dried grass. Rats feet o'er broken glass. A rollickin' carnival caricature. A f*in'-A, burning Saigon bordello, shrieking side-show of lies. Yesterday, we explored the Young Master Kennerly's understanding of basic (very basic) first level organic chemistry, by reviewing his "Methamphetamine FAQ". Keep in mind that this was just a sample analysis. I picked two of his syntheses more or less at random, realized that they were absolutely preposterous, and then realized that almost all the rest was unmitigated garbage. There are certainly some correct statements and correct quotes in there. It's that intimate melange of occasional fact with utter nonsense, leavened with Kennerly's authoritative (but phony) Bullsh*tting that cons most people so well. A Pied Piper, I said, and I'll say it again. Singing his tune to lead away to their doom the unwary. And this is my swan song for him. Give me six months, and I could teach a beagle more about chemistry than Jason Kennerly knows. And I could train a beagle _not_ to sh*t all over the newsgroup. [Bonus question: What does a moron call a smart person whose arguments have no flaws? Answer: Arrogant. ] Evaporating Solvents -- The Kennerly Way! ****************************************** Now let's move on to Jason's "Mecathinone FAQ". Now Jason didn't actually write this document. He just "maintains it", as he puts it. Which _should_ mean he vouches for the accuracy and completeness of the document, but _in fact_ means that he's only taking _credit_ for it. Whatta shameless bandit, huh? Go down to the "Mecathinone FAQ" section entitled: "Makign [sic] Glittering White Crystals". "Glittering", eh? Gee, that sounds nice. Like the baubles they sold the Indians to buy New York? In this section, Young Master Kennerly describes how to make said crystals from the liquid solution of mecathinone. To accomplish this trivially simple procedure Young Master Kennerly tells you to add some methanol or ethanol (i.e., an alcohol) to the evaporating solution (which is a mixture of water and some rubbing alcohol). This, he assures us, will speed the evaporation process. And that's "a definite plus", he intones. F+ maybe? Think of it qualitatively. It takes X amount of heat to boil or evaporate water/rubbing alcohol. It takes Y amount of heat to boil or evaporate methanol or ethanol. Mix the two together, kiddies, and how much heat do you need to evaporate them? Did anyone say, "X + Y"? So why would adding the ethanol or methanol speed the process? Maybe he thinks that because methanol/ethanol evaporate quickly, adding it to water makes _it_ evaporate quicker. The Kennerly Transitive Solvent Evaporation Theory? The mind boggles. But wait -- you're probably asking yourself yourself -- what about _azeotropes_? Ohoh. There's one of those $50 words that phony wannabes love to toss around, few can _define_, fewer _understand_, and even fewer can apply. Azeotropes _do_ effect the equation slightly (either raising _or_ lowering 'X+Y'), but for the purposes of our discussion, it's not enough to change things significantly. Plug some actual numbers in if you still don't believe me. The bottom line is that adding a solvent that evaporates easily does _not_ making water evaporate _more_ quickly, but _less_ quickly. It's called thermodynamics, and even a child should understand the basic argument. Look up Raoult's Law for further details on issues of vapour pressure and such. The punch-line: methanol and water don't _even_ form an azeotrope. Look it up under "azeotropes, binary" in the "CRC Handbook" in any decent public library. You think Jason's ever bothered to visit one? Tomorrow: Jason Kennerly: Fraud or Fool? -- You Decide! Yogi ************************************************* "I declare my independence from the fool and from the knave, I declare my independence from the coward and the slave, I declare that I will fight for Right and fear no jail nor grave, That's why we keep marchin' on." "Move on Over" Len Chandler ************************************************* [ NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: I don't want to end this here with Jason being "undefended." *however*, subsequent to this thread there wasn't much chemistry, just flames -- you can check out the thread for yourself on altavista.com. There hasn't been a revised version of the FAQ, so I'm going to have to let Yogi's comments stand alone. ]